Adapted extract from Hunt & Keith-Hill's report

The Vendettas of Mohamed 'Al' Fayed

(page four of ten)

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    Fayed telephoned Pollard later that evening to learn what happened at the press conference.  Fayed was not happy to learn that she had decided against causing a rumpus.  However, days later Pollard happened to mention that when Warren and his secretary had left the Lords afterwards, they had been walking quickly to avoid reporters.  This gave Richard New an idea. 
    Accordingly, in the third week of June, on Fayed's orders, New wrote the following letter addressed to Ken Warren, which he then couriered to Francesca Pollard for her to sign as if it was from herself:

The letter was dated 20 June 1990: 

        'Dear Mr Warren,
        As like any "warren" you are normally so full of "rabbit, rabbit" that I was surprised when you
        scampered off and refused to talk to me when I sought to question you at the House on the day of
        the publication of the Select Committee's report on DTI Inquiries.
            All I wished to ask you was why I had the distinction of being the only person whose evidence to
        your committee was not reproduced in your report, but was instead shunted off to the obscurity of
        the House library leaving only my name and an otherwise blank page in your report (page xlvii).
        Despite the fact that I appear to have been the only person to give evidence who has actually been
        the victim of fraud (by Rowland and his henchmen).
            Your appointment of Barry Rider to the key position of legal adviser to your committee was
        simply staggering.  Was it representative?  You must have been aware that on the 18^th September
        last year he had been effectively sacked -for alleged fraud, fiddling expenses and threatening
        staff -from his position as head of the crime unit of the Commonwealth Secretariat (Eyes 11^th and
        25^th May) and that it is also alleged that parts of his "C.V." are fictitious.  You must also have
        known that it was in his position at the Secretariat that he had come to know Rowland so well.
            As can be seen from your report, it was solely on Rider's say so that you scurrilously dreamt
        up various "hypothetical" charges against those running House of Fraser -flying totally in the face
        of the evidence of all the investigating bodies, and furthering Rowland's vendetta...
        .....My moderate views on Mr Rowland are by now well known.  He is a conniving, thieving, crook,
        as are most of his cronies.  In his ten year vendetta against House of Fraser, he and his
        assorted lackeys may have been able to hijack and hoodwink a couple of naive DTI inspectors
        into chasing nannies and birth certificates and rubber-stamping a "Rowland" report, but to
        ordinary people the affair is simple. 
            Mr Rowland's background manifestly makes him an "unfit person" to run even an ice cream
        stall, let alone to have gained control of House of Fraser -a known master criminal, thief,
        blackmailer, briber, perjurer and ex Nazi-sympathiser....  '

Contrary to what this letter implies, Pollard had not harassed Ken Warren outside Parliament at all.  New had invented the scenario from Pollard's recollection that Warren had walked past the Lords entrance briskly.  As Pollard stated in her affidavit dated 28 June 1991:

        'It asserted (wrongly) that Mr Warren refused to talk to me and that he had run away.  Richard
        had fabricated out of my observation of a harmless incident an allegation of apparent fear on
        Mr Warren's part, leading to an outright allegation of impropriety against him.'

Richard New's leaking of the smear story about Prof. Rider -and his letter suggesting that Warren had run away from harassment - were both seemingly directly responsible for an escalation of Fayed's actions, for the experience gained from these activities were used again and again thereafter. 

In Fayed's next vendetta, against a former Harrods executive named Graham Jones, Francesca Pollard played no part.

Graham Jones, on Fayed's behalf, had valued Modena Engineering (a Ferrari specialist) prior to Fayed's purchase of the company for his son, Dodi.  Subsequently, Fayed decided that he had paid too much for the company, and he accused Jones of having taken a bribe from Modena's vendors to over-value it.  Fayed sacked Jones and embarked on an extraordinary vendetta against him, involving the dissemination of false allegations to the press.
    Jones decided that he'd had enough and opted to go back home to his native Australia, where he had secured an executive position with its national airline, Qantas.  So, on 18 June 1990 (just two days before Fayed sent Ken Warren the letter just discussed), Graham Jones boarded an aircraft at Heathrow bound for Sydney, Australia. 
    As the doors closed and he settled into his seat, he must have been relieved at the prospect of getting away from it all.  But before he had time to check out the in-flight movies, the 747's doors opened again and in strolled four policemen from Surrey Constabulary.  So, instead of a relaxing, pampered flight, Jones was arrested, dragged off the plane and spirited away to Guildford Police station where he was interrogated for over an hour and a half about Modena's finances with a view to fraud charges being brought against him. 
    After satisfying themselves that there were no grounds for any charges, the police apologised, released him, put him up in an hotel, and booked him a flight the next day.  The Fayed employees responsible for persuading the police to take such draconian action were the same ones whose word Sir Gordon Downey had found so valuable in his investigation of the 'cash for questions' affair: Royston Webb and John Macnamara. 
    However, Fayed hadn't finished with Graham Jones.  Even as he settled into his seat on his delayed flight back home, Fayed's mouthpiece, Michael Cole, on his master's instruction, made further false allegations against Jones to the Daily Express to destroy his new career even before his plane had landed down under.

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